


A Royal Pain in the

by rin0rourke



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Fake Marriage, Father Figures, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-09 17:30:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13486326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rin0rourke/pseuds/rin0rourke
Summary: The Tsar and Tsarina Lunanoff visit Earth to be formally presented with their son's adopted heir, and they bring guests. The Pookan Brotherhood are ready to move forward with expansion into this section of the universe, which Pleases Bunnymund, who has been eager to cultivate beyond Earth and is chomping at the bit to get his hands on mars.Until the word Reassignment gets dropped.Now the Milky Way is closing ranks around their favorite Pooka, desperate for some way to keep him from being sent not just off planet, but off Galaxy. Bunnymund doesn't want to leave, and Lunar doesn't want to lose him, but the only way to block the order is to bind him to someone who not even the Brotherhood would demand be transplanted. Lunar's ward, Jack Frost.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> originally going to be the Royalty AU for jackrabbit week, but I couldn't leave it a oneshot.

“Jack!”

The hand dangling from the rafters twitched and noises of upset trickled down. “What do you want now?”

“Jack, you were supposed to be getting ready.”

Jack peeked over the edge of the wooden beam, “I am.”

It was not just anything that could have the ever patient unflappable Tsar Lunar standing with hands on his hips, pursed lips, and the makings of a furrowed brow. It was possibly Jack Frost’s greatest personal accomplishment. Legend said he actually won a small glare from those soft kind eyes once, but no one who had been present at THAT incident had ever corroborated his story.

“Rolling around in the dust and cobwebs is not getting ready. Now please, come down, my parents will be here soon.”

Jack let all four limbs drop, thunking his head back against the rafter, and giving a long exaggerated groan of pure misery. “I don’t WANT to.”

“Jack.” Tsar Lunar’s voice got soft and near musical, tilting his stupid round head and smiling up at his ward’s antics. “Please come down.”

And Jack considered not doing it, he crossed his arms and glared pretty hard at the roof above him, really thinking hard about not doing it. But Lunar had already managed to find him in the most disused, most out of the way tower within the palace. Any further refusal could possibly be interpreted as hiding, or worse as petulant. 

Jack was neither. So he dropped down, letting the wind catch him as he twisted and landed in front of the Tsar with a grace that completely contradicted his current dirty bedraggled state.

The pursed lips that tightened within that amused parental smile was more than worth the quick response to the request. 

“Jack.” Lunar shook his head, “Look at you, you’re not even wearing shoes.” He wasn’t, and was quite pleased with that. He didn’t even remember which balcony he had dropped them off of, definitely the one two flights of stairs up from where he dropped the necktie, or was it the jacket… he hadn’t been paying much attention beyond escape. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Fire me?” Jack offered with a grin.

“You can’t be fired from this.” Lunar put his arm around Jack and steered him bodily towards the door. It was his most effective means of shepherding, the armpit to shoulder half hug was impossible for anyone to refuse from the round, pudgy, fatherly Tsar. Jack was no exception. “You are a prince now, I’m sorry but it is what it is.”

Jack blew out a big gust of air in a raspberry that got Lunar chuckling. “Who decided this? It wasn’t me, and I think I should get a say.”

“It was decided when I adopted you.”

“When you kidnapped me.” 

“When I adopted you.” Lunar dug his index finger into Jack’s side until the boy choked on his laughter. “When I rescued you, bruised and half starved, hissing like a treed cat at Nightlight.”

“I was not!” Jack objected. “I was making very sound arguments against being picked up out of the snow in my sleep.”

“Arguments huh?” Lunar side eyed Jack as he opened a door for the boy to pass through first. 

“Yes, very convincing, very grown up arguments.”

“The only thing grown up about that tantrum had been the vocabulary.”

Jack answered this with a very mature scrunch of his face and jut of his tongue.

Laughing Lunar shoved Jack away by his head. “ I don’t suppose we can make you prince charming in the next 15 minutes, but can you at least be presentable? My parents are bringing the Pookan delegation with them. The who's who of the planet will be making appearances.”

“Which is why I think it would be a reeeaaaly good idea if I just, you know, skipped this one.” Jack struggled out of his blouse and chucked it into the laundry bin. 

“Jack.” Lunar said in that pleasant tone that warned of upcoming lectures on how important it was for Jack to be present at the stuffy ridiculously tedious state affairs.

“No, okay, just hear me out.” Jack ducked behind the shower screen and tossed fresh clothes over the top. Hopping on one foot he attempted to get his pants off. “You KNOW how many bigwigs don’t like me, they didn’t like me when I was a hobo-cicle, they don’t like me as a princely pest. So why have me there, getting everybody’s panties all twisted, when the two biggest visiting courts in the entire frick fracking galaxy are gonna be brunching at your place?”

“Jack.” Tsar Lunar caught his elbow as he ducked out of the stall, all restless energy and hopeless hair. 

“You’re like a broken record, Jack Jack Jack, say it into the mirror maybe I’ll show up at midnight.” Jack jerked out of his grip with more force than he meant to, but couldn’t find a way to take the motion back without undermining his pride.

“Maybe then you’ll actually listen to me.” Lunar tipped Jack’s face up until they were eye to eye, which Jack hated because it was impossible to tell him no when he made you look into his eyes. Stupid kind fatherly eyes, stupid soft round face, stupid gentle understanding smile. It hadn’t been Nightlight who had coaxed him down from the tree 20 years ago. He’d have bitten the literal white knight’s hand off at the wrist if he had tried to touch him again.

But this man? This fat, sweet, man with his dumb hairstyle and soft voice? He’d have walked into death for this man if he had asked.

Or worse, a political event.

“I want you there, Jack.” Lunar told him gently. “Not because you know exactly what to say to make people laugh, or because you keep the children from getting bored, or because you make for quite the handsome prince in your fancy clothes.” Jack scoffed at this, but it was softened with laughter trapped deep in his throat. “I want you there because I love you, and having you with me, knowing you will be beside me brings me such joy.”

And really, how do you respond to that?

The flush of warmth and affection had Jack ducking his head. “Fine, okay. I’ll go.” he conceded. “And I’ll behave, I promise.”

Lunar’s laugh was like sleigh bells, he plucked a brush from the vanity and attempted to bring some measure of order to the snow flurry he called hair. “Jack, if I wanted a well behaved child I would have adopted a moonbot.”

  
  



	2. Star Crossed

“Bunny!”

Aster started at the shout, roaring and boisterous as ever North marched up to him and clapped him on the shoulder. “Lo North.” he tried for a smile.

“Look at you. Long time, my friend, since I have seen you in such clothes.”

Aster forced himself to not fiddle with the gold buttons on the front of his uniform. “Yeah, mite confining considering me occupation.” He blew out a big breath that distended his cheeks. “But needs must. Wouldn’t want the Pookan Delegation to catch sight of me starkers.” Bad enough his.. Physical changes. He rolled his shoulders, nowhere near North’s massive girth but far wider and thicker than his brethren. And his middle, he pressed a hand to his gut where it seemed the warren’s pollinators had taken up residence, well there was no hiding his loss of weight. He’d packed on the pounds, as he always did between Easter runs, but it was nowhere near the respectable plush that was ideal to all Pooka.

He wondered what they would think of his fighting form, the extra arms, the extra muscle. Barbaric most likely. Primitive. Unbecoming of a warrior scholar. Unbecoming of a Pooka. Did he even remember how to fly with his ears? He hadn’t been one for heights since his ship had malfunctioned and he’d barely made it to the escape pod before it hit the earth.

Cost him the bloody dinosaurs. Wasn’t keen on a repeat experience.

“Come now, my friend.” North gave him a hard shove. “I see your brain running circles, you must relax.”

“Ye don’t get it North.” Aster sagged against the rail looking out over the city, the Lunar Base sure had grown these thousand years. Lot of off worlders joining Manny’s court. Mostly young adventurous blowhards, eager to prove themselves in a universe kept in tight reign. In Comparison to the rest of the Laniakea Supercluster the Milky Way was damn near lawless.  “I’ve been stuck in this backwater planet for eons, forgotten after the war. I used to be the best, no one else would have been chosen to terraform the base we’d all retreat to. Earth was just the first, then Mars, then we’d start using the raw materials in the belt. Start building bases in the moons and the dwarves and a coupla them satellites. I had plans.”

Plans that never came about, when no one came to settle. No One but the Sisters of Flight and the Lunar Lamas, the first because their star was dying, the second because the Lunanoffs had a direct escape route there and couldn’t be expected to set up house with nothing but robots. No other Constellation had sent an advance group. No one else had believed they would need it. Until they did, and by then it was too late.

“I’m not sayin peace ruined my plans but.. It’s been billions of years North, billions, and only four thousand years ago did they even remember we existed. Because their precious Tsar Lunar XII wanted to move outta his parents basement.”

North, the hoon he was, chuckled. “I’m not saying I disagree with you. I am also upset on your behalf.” He slung his arm around Aster in a strong half embrace. “You are my friend, though you pretend otherwise half the time, and I hurt for you to be left behind. However, are they not here now to move forward?”

Aster sighed again, “Yeah, the message sent to Manny… to Tsar Lunar,” He grimaced. Damn but it was annoying to remind himself: Delegation, Lunanoff court, Titles. “ They said they wanted to expand. Bring our system into the whole, connect the whole damn Milky Way starting with us.” and it was a giddy thought. Pitch had all but annihilated Andromeda chasing survivors before he had been stopped. Close. Damn close. He had thought they’d bring the refugees to Earth, but they had all turned back around.

There had been so much rebuilding that he had wondered, to himself and in his missives to the brotherhood, why they didn’t just transplant everyone to the Milky Way. It would take as much resources to rebuild as it did to start from scratch. But no one had answered back.

Sometimes, the low times, he wondered if they blocked his signals.

Manny certainly hadn’t been expecting a living Pooka to be inhabiting the abandoned fallout bunker of a planet he’d run away to like a brooding teenager.

“I know it is long time coming my friend, and I do not believe you should forgive them abandoning you, but you finally have the one thing in ENTIRE cosmos you have always wanted.” North’s bulk was heavy and warm and very much welcome. I do not like you brooding in corners on your big day.”

“Yer right, crickey can’t believe I said that aloud.” Aster dodged the jab North tried to throw with a laugh and turned back to the party, more a small gathering at the moment as they waited for the guests of honor.

“Come, mingle. You have been hiding underground too long, the Groundhogs have spread rumors that you are dead and we paint the eggs ourselves.”

He bristled. “They would, little shits hold a grudge like nothing else.”

“You did declare rivalry with Jack Frost.” North sounded far too amused at the whole debacle.

“Mongrel broke a bloody blizzard over me head on my own holiday, but I’m the one getting the lectures.” He ignored North mouthing the B words around his laughter and indulged in a good simmer. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if everyone hadn’t been so damn bemused when he went ranting at them after. He didn’t see what was so funny about some yabbo trying to ruin Easter.

Then 20 years ago Manny went and adopted the little bastard.

Not that he needed another excuse to avoid Guardian meetings on the Moon Base, but the constant invites to meet the sprite got irritating quick. It was none of his business what foundling Manny took as his own and what he dropped off with some other caretaker, but did it HAVE to be Frost?

“He is not so bad Bunny.” North tried again to bring him over to Jack’s good side.

“Easy for ye t’say. Yer used to snow on yer holiday.”

“Bunny.” his tone was getting dangerously exasperated and Aster knew they’d have to change conversations quick if he didn’t want the old bandit to drag him by the ears in front of the Pookan Brotherhood and all of creation until they found Frost and he was forced to finally make nice.

“Ye need to call me Aster here North.” He snapped probably a little more irritated than he should be. And obvious. “They won’t take kindly t’ye calling me ‘Bunny’, or Tsar Lunar ‘Manny’ either.”

“Da, I have been informed.” North waved it off. “But they are not here yet, and you are changing subject.” Yeah, he’d been real obvious.

“Ye should take the hint then and drop it.”

“You can’t just-” North was interrupted by the quiet hiss of the doors down the wall from them, Aster could feel the shift in the room as the Guests turned to see who was in the doorway, through until they entered Aster couldn’t know for certain he could guess.

Sure enough, Tsar Lunar stepped through, followed by what was considered his immediate family. There was Nightlight, now tall and manly and still glowing with a brilliance all his own, and beside him was Katherine, lovely and graceful as her goose Kailash behind them.

The one to Manny’s left though was unknown, visible only as the group moved further towards the center, followed by the Moonbot servers who began to make their rounds with trays of drinks. They looked like Nightlight had, those 4 thousand years ago when Manny had first landed, before he had met Katherine and fell in love. Small, thin, with white hair and pale skin. More than that was obscured by the others.

Just when Aster shifted to maybe get a better view the waif turned their head and looked over, eyes lighting on North with an easy recognition before locking in on him. Intense, huge blue eyes, pinning him to the wall. They stole his breath.

“Speaking of Jack Frost.” North muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bunny, you can'take just start a feud with someone you've never seen. What if they're gorgeous?


End file.
